


Emptiness and Separation

by auri_mynonys



Category: Jupiter Ascending (2015)
Genre: Drabble, F/M, Ficlet, Incest, Sibling Incest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-01
Updated: 2015-03-01
Packaged: 2018-03-15 20:07:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 423
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3460295
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/auri_mynonys/pseuds/auri_mynonys
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Balique. Balem only speaks his truest thoughts to the unconscious or inanimate. Fortunately, Kalique is very good at feigning sleep.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Emptiness and Separation

**Author's Note:**

> Moral of the story: I can read shippiness into anything, including a two-second exchange of names and heavily laden glances. And also, my headcanon is that Balem has extended conversations only with people who are unconscious, about to die probably, or who aren't even physically there.
> 
> Prompted on tumblr: "things you said when you thought I was asleep."

Kalique learns much of Balem at night, when she lies beside him pretending to sleep. When she is conscious, he is always wary, always guarded, cold and distant even when he molds his hands to her naked flesh. But when he fancies her asleep - too lost in dreams to ever hear him - then he whispers to her his secrets, spilling them like confession.

"You must know, Kalique, that you can never replace mother in my eyes," he murmurs, pressing a kiss to her throat. "Nor, I think, could I replace her in yours. Well, we all love her as best we can." He laughs softly. "But does it pain you, sister, to feel so much unloved? It must, for you to seek me out."

Kalique lies very still, forcing her breathing into a steady, even rhythm.  _I did not come to you for only loneliness, brother. I came because I wanted you._

His breath his hot against her neck as he hides his face against her skin. "She would murder me for saying so, and she would be within her rights to do it," he says. "But Kalique… you must not think she loves you less because of your sex. The truth is that you frighten her. She cannot ever know you as she knows Titus and I - you will not let her in. You will let no one in."

His fingers take a curl and wind it round and round. He presses the lock to his nose and breathes deep, exhaling slowly. “I like to think I know you better,” he whispers. “But even I cannot deny that you are… complicated. It is what I love best about you - that mystery, that depth.”

He moves back to her throat, planting a slow kiss beneath her ear. “Sometimes it seems that we were born of one flesh, father and mother both,” he says; “That we were twins long separated and made to walk in different circles. Do you ever feel that, Kalique? That emptiness, that separation?” He exhales again, a shuddering sigh. “I feel it,” he says, his voice choked with emotion. “I feel it, save with you.”

Kalique tightens her grip upon the pillow, biting the inside of her cheek. How desperately she longs to roll over and press her mouth to his; but he would never forgive her for listening to his secrets like this, and she cannot bear to lose her nights with him. They are rare enough as it is.

_Yes, Balem_ , she thinks.  _Yes, I feel it too._


End file.
